


Drake

by kikabennet



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Batfamily Feels, Deviates From Canon, Dick Grayson - Freeform, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Gotham universe, Human Trafficking, Jason Todd (mentioned) - Freeform, Jewish Tim Drake, Kid Tim Drake, Tim Drake is Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:17:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9603641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikabennet/pseuds/kikabennet
Summary: A sister story/sequel to "Todd". Twelve-year old Tim Drake has a nice house and lots of money, but his father is a stranger to him, and when Tim learns about a terrible family secret, he might even be a deadly stranger.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, set in the Gotham universe because I love Gotham, I have to add like I did with "Todd" that this strays away from possibly all canon involving Tim Drake. It is a completely fictional origin story, but I hope you enjoy it! I will try and review to your reviews as fast as I can. Thanks!

 

 

Tim listened as his father spoke to the men outside. He knew better than to go out there. When he was younger, he'd always tried, but his father had been stern, even harsh, about him staying inside while he was "doing business".

The work always involved vans and shady looking men, sometimes suave men in suits. Now Tim didn't try and see what was going on. He had bigger things to worry about anyway. Turning away from the window, he went back to his newspaper, where yet another article about the Batman had made the front page. Taking his scissors, he snipped out the grainy black and white photo of Jervis Tetch being put into the back of a police car. The picture would go with all of the others in his album. For years, Tim had been awed by the concept of the Batman-someone who knew Gotham was a mess, but too many holes were in place to properly fix it. Someone who stopped bad guys, but did not kill them. Someone who wanted no credit or glory, only justice.

"Tim?" His father called over his bedroom intercom. "I'm going out. Ask Yolanda to fix you dinner if you get hungry."

"Okay, Dad!" Tim called back.

He knew he should feel strange about his and his father's relationship, or lack of one, but it had been like that ever since he was little. Tim couldn't remember his mother very well. She had died when he was six, and even though six was plenty old enough to have memories, Tim had very few. Like his father, his mother had been just as apathetic towards her only son. Tim remembered one of his first nannies being fired because he'd called her 'Mommy' in front of his mother.  
The Drake Mansion home was not as large and lavish as some of the homes in Gotham, but Tim had known from a very early age that his family was wealthy. His own bedroom was equipped with a computer, mini fridge, television, video game systems, and intercom. Unless he had to go to the bathroom, Tim technically never had to leave his room for anything. That's the way his father set it up, he imagined.  
Tim hardly stayed in his room, however. He was spent most of his free time outdoors in the city. He liked the hustle and bustle of everyday life, especially at night. Often, Tim wandered up and down the dangerous streets of Gotham in hopes of catching a glimpse of Batman and one of the Robins. He knew there was more than one, most likely one after the other because children grew up and 'Robin' had been around for a while. As of lately, it had only been Batman, but Tim did the math and if the second Robin was anything like the first, he was close to being a grown up now. Maybe Batman was looking for his next Robin?  
After he was sure his father was gone, Tim opened his window and used his homemade grappling hook to climb down. He could have easily used the front door, but in case he needed to fight crime one day, he tried to keep his body strong and limber, even if the kids at his private school did call him a shrimp. At least he was a shrimp who knew not only how to build a grappling hook, but also how to escape a three story house using one.  
The Drake house was in the heart of the city so he did not have to go far at all. It was a chilly night in October, and Tim zipped up his jacket as he weaved in and out of pedestrians, homeless people, drug addicts, and prostitutes. To him, this was home. The city and all of its people, good and bad. Not the stuffy house with Yolanda fussing over his hair and shirttail.  
After about two hours, Tim gave up on the idea of the Batman and returned home. As he started to climb up through the window, he heard a noise in the guest house. He frowned, wondering who could be inside this late. His father never set foot in there and Yolanda only went inside to clean. The gardening crew wouldn't be out this late either. Tim released his rope and walked the short distance to the guesthouse door. There was a rustling sound and then silence when Tim's shadow blocked the bright security light that shown in through the glass window of the door. He started to open it, but it was locked. He peered through the window, and stumbled backwards. A woman sitting on the floor stared back at him, and quickly scooted out of sight. Gathering his courage, Tim peeked in again, cupping his hands around his face. He saw no one.

"Timothy?" Yolanda appeared, holding a trash bag. "You come inside now. What're you doing out here, huh?"

"There's someone in the guesthouse," he told her, pointing to the window. "I heard something, and then I saw someone-"

Yolanda set the trash bag down and placed her hands firmly on his thin shoulders.

"Ay!" She said sternly. "You listen, Mr. Tim, you saw nothing. You tell your father nothing of this. He will be very upset if you do."

Tim nodded shakily, not used to having Yolanda speak so harshly at him.

"Go inside," she told him. "Wash up."

\-------------  
Tim had his guesses who the Batman was. His top guess was Commissioner Gordon, who always seemed very hesitant to give any comment on the matter. Not to mention, his daughter, Barbara, was the perfect size and shape to be 'Batgirl', a young, slender female who was sometimes caught with the Batman and Robin. Commissioner Gordon was still in pretty good shape for an older man, and he was a legend in Gotham already for being this sort of savior cop that refused to give up on the city. He had done amazing things like taken Jerome Valeska down, Jervis Tetch, Victor Fries, Hugo Strange, Edward Nygma and all sorts of other unsavory characters that continued to stir up trouble. Tim had done a lot of research on him, and he seemed to be the perfect fit.  
Bruce Wayne sometimes came up in Tim's thoughts too. Tim had seen him before, even met him at a party, but he didn't really give off 'Batman' vibes. He was a tall, shy, quiet man who spoke kindly. Tim had researched him as well. Bruce had gone through a lot at a young age, and seemed to be put in very dangerous situations. He also had the resources to have the cool gadgets Batman had, but Tim imagined the man under the cowl to be someone who had seen everything in their time and was hardened by life. Someone who was obsessed with doing the right thing, even if they had to do it the wrong way.

\----------------------  
"Fix your hair, Tim," Mr. Drake said as they ate breakfast the following morning. It was a rare occasion for them to sit at the table together, let alone eat together, but Tim felt he had to ask his father some questions.

"Dad?" He asked, stirring some of his cream of wheat around.

"Mmhmm?" His father replied, holding the morning paper so close there was hardly any room for his coffee cup to reach his lips.

"Do you think maybe I could use the guesthouse sometime?" Tim asked, watching for his father's reaction.

To his satisfaction, his father looked at him, and set his mug down.

"Why would you want to use the guesthouse?" He asked, a drop of suspicion in his voice.

Tim shrugged. "Thinking of having some friends over."

"Use the upstairs sitting room," his father said simply. "There's two guest bedrooms up there and a media room."

He snapped his paper open again and Tim watched as his father relaxed slightly, sipping at his coffee again.

"Do you use it for something?" He asked.

"School, Mr. Tim!" Yolanda said, bustling into the kitchen and taking his bowl from under him and his spoon out of his hand. "Hurry up."

As Tim stood up and pushed his chair in, he caught his father watching him from the corner of his eye.

"Have a good day, Son," he told him. Something Tim he had probably never said before.

\------------  
Tim spent the next few evenings running up and down the stairs of random buildings. He had plenty of stairs to run on at home, but he liked the idea of knowing he could be ready for any staircase in Gotham. Every night when he returned home, he moved to peek in the guesthouse window, but never saw anything, and it was still locked. Tim also worked on his Batman mystery. The idea of Jim Gordon being Batman was still strong, but Tim was having a hard time figuring out who the Robins could have been. Gordon had a daughter, but no sons. Bruce Wayne, however, had two, and their ages were spaced apart just enough for both of them to have been Robin.  
Bruce Wayne's older son was named Richard Grayson. He would have turned seventeen right around the time the second son, Jason, came into the picture. Tim went through his old newspaper clippings of the Robins. There weren't many of them. The Batman and his 'boy wonder' sidekick did a good job at avoiding getting captured on camera. Their uniforms were definitely different, and they looked like different boys, but Tim could not tell if the grainy photos of the masked children matched the paparazzi snapshots of the adopted Wayne children.

\----------------  
Yolanda became aware of Tim's evening departures so Tim had to alter his time frame to go train. Instead of leaving after dinner and returning late at night, he had to wait until the middle of the night and return before dawn. He was afraid of heights, but began running around rooftops to force himself to get used to it. One night, as he ran in a square around the rooftop of one of the tallest building in Gotham, his shoe came untied and he tripped, tumbling sideways, and over the edge of the rooftop. He cried out as he did so, and grabbed the ledge with his hands, his fingers scraping against the cold cement. His feet dangled helplessly below. He didn't know how long he could hold on, and every time he tried to pull himself up, he lost more of his grip on the ledge.

"No!" He gasped as his fingers started to slide. "N-no,no,no,no,ahh!"

"I got you!" A voice rasped out, and strong, gloved hands pulled him back onto the roof.

Tim realized with terrible embarrassment that he'd peed himself. He was also shaking so hard that his hands wouldn't even stay still. It took several seconds for him to realize the person kneeling in front of him was his hero, literally and figuratively.

"Are you alright?" The Batman asked.

Tim nodded, still trembling. The Batman helped him to his feet and Tim's legs wobbled.

"What were you doing up here?" The Batman asked, and Tim noticed that his voice, though masked with low growl, was soft and gentle.

Tim said nothing. The Batman walked him over to the stairs and Tim felt as if he would faint. The logical part of his brain failed to work and he was suddenly terrified looking down the stairs, even if there a few at a time that kept winding down and down and down.

"I can't," he said, his voice cracking.

The Batman looked at him for several seconds, and then scooped him up. It seemed like an eternity that the masked man carried him down flight after flight of stairs, and when they finally got to the bottom, he set him down and placed a hand on his shoulder. Tim looked away.

"You need to return home now," he told Tim.

Tim nodded.

The Batman hesitated before asking, "Is home a safe place?"

"Yes." Tim nodded. "Thank you."

\---------  
When Tim returned home, a van was parked in the driveway of the guesthouse. He moved behind the stone wall that separated the building from the main house only with a decorative entry way in the middle and peeked around to see what was going on. He heard the front door of the main house open and he quickly moved away, further down the wall, until he was hidden by some bushes. His father was coming outside.

"You're late," his father said to two men who climbed out of the van, smoking cigarettes.

Tim watched as his father unlocked the guesthouse door and opened it. After several seconds, the garage door opened. The two men went in through the garage door and didn't come out for several minutes. Tim waited.

"Quing!" A young woman sobbed as the two men led her out. She was dirty, dressed only in a tank top and ratty sweatpants, her hands bound together with a ziptie. "Rang wo zou!"

The other man brought out an older woman who was also crying. They forced the two women into the back of the van, and then returned to the guesthouse, emerging with more women, men, and children. Tim's father exited, counting a stack of money. He handed half of the bills to one man, the other half to his partner. Tim could hear miserable wailing from the back of the van, and one of the men stepped inside and began screaming at them. Tim figured he hit one of them because a child shrieked in fear.

"There's one more!" Tim's father said as a young girl who looked to be about Tim's age, ran out of the house. Barefoot, only wearing an oversized T-shirt, she darted off the driveway and onto the path that led to the gate at the end of the house. One of them shot her in the leg and she fell down with a cry.

"You idiot!" Tim's father told him. "We don't have medical staff!"

He sighed, annoyed, and said, "Kill her."

Tim watched, shaking, as the man approached the terrified girl who was dragging herself, and shot her in the head. He dragged her body back to the van and tossed it inside. There was more shrieking and wailing. The two men closed the back of the van and Tim's father shut the garage down. The van drove off, away into the night. Fear and anger filled Tim, and something else that he couldn't quite place.  
As his father locked the door to the guesthouse, he looked around before heading back into the main house.

\-------------  
Tim searched the house high and low for the key to the guesthouse, but never found it. Night after night, he watched through the window to see if any people went in or out of the guesthouse, but he saw none. He figured, they must be bringing them during the day while Tim was at school. He skipped school the following day, letting Yolanda drop him off, and then he took the next city bus home. He went upstairs and changed out of his school uniform into jeans, sneakers, a t-shirt and light jacket. He then went outside and hid in the same hiding spot as before. He waited all day, but nobody came.

\-------------  
It wasn't until nearly two weeks later, close to four in the morning, that Tim heard noises outside. Groggily getting out of bed, he looked out the window and saw another van, and saw his father opening the garage door. Quickly getting dressed, Tim hurried outside and hid behind the wall. The same two men took people out of the house and loaded them into the back of the van. Like before, many of them were women and children, and several of them were sobbing.

"Man, get in there!" One of the men loading them in told an elderly man, clocking him on the head with the butt of his pistol.

"Stop!" Tim yelled, unable to take no more.

"Tim?" His father frowned.

"I am about to call the police!" Tim said. "What are you doing?"

"Tim, go back to bed," his father said. "Now."

"What are you doing?" Tim demanded again.

The two men stared at him, a look of bored amusement on their faces. Mr. Drake approached his son and said, "I'm telling you again, go back to bed."

Tim looked past him into the open van, where the old man looked confused, tears running down his cheeks. His father snapped his fingers to get his attention.

"Timothy!"

"Stupid kid!" One of the men said, grabbing Tim.

"Hey!" His father said.

Tim retrieved his pocket knife from his back pocket, flipped it open, and stabbed the man in the thigh. He had never used the knife for anything, not even to cut a box open. His heart began to pound wildly. The man cried out and released him. Before anything else could happen, he took off running down the driveway and down the path, past the gate, and into the city. He needed to find help.

Once he became tired, he hid in an alleyway, partly to catch his breath, and partly in case his father or those men drove around looking for him. He waited for what seemed like hours, and then came out of the alley, looking around. A noise sounded behind him, and he took out his knife again, flicking the blade open. It was a woman, dressed all in black. She pulled her hood down, releasing wild blonde curls.

"Relax, Kid," she said, grinning. "I don't bite."

"What do you want?" He asked.

"I was just strolling through," she said with a shrug. "I don't want anything."

Tim put his knife away slowly.

"Which way to the police station?" He asked.

The woman pointed and asked, "You in some kind of trouble?"

Tim suddenly felt dizzy, and sat down. The woman squatted next to him.

"Hey, you alright?" She asked.

"I need to talk to James Gordon," he said shakily.

The sound of trashcans moving startled them both and Tim stood up quickly when he saw one of the men. The man advanced on him, and Tim watched as the woman moved to stand in front of him and kicked the assailant under the chin, knocking him backwards. He got back up and just as the woman started to throw a punch at him, he grabbed her and slammed her into the brick wall they were standing in front of.

"Let her go!" Tim ordered.

The man tossed the woman aside and moved to grab him. He took Tim roughly by the arm and said, "You're in deep shit, Son."

Tim was suddenly thrown violently, and when he was able to get to his hands and knees, he saw the Batman once again. He struggled with the man only for a second before sending a hard blow to his head, knocking him unconscious. He then moved to the woman's side, helping her up.

"Selina?" He asked, no mask to his voice this time. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah..." she winced. "The kid? He alright?"

They both turned to look at Tim. The Batman seemed to recognize him.

"Hello, again," he told him.

"You two know each other?" The woman asked.

"I need help," Tim said, all thoughts of fanboying over the Batman or becoming his new Robin flying out the window.

 

To Be Continued...


End file.
